


feel it in my fingers

by talia_ae



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Snow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:26:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talia_ae/pseuds/talia_ae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah,” Derek says, shaking snow out of his hair, “this?  This isn’t going to be over until we’ve killed Jack Frost."</p><p>In which Derek ruins Christmas Eve because he and Stiles have to hunt down an evil children's fable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feel it in my fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Might have stolen the title from that song from _Love, Actually_ , but that movie is totally Derek Hale's favorite, so it's okay. You know he's that kind of guy.

“Adrenaline,” Derek says shortly, turning away.  “Take a deep breath through your nose and sit for a minute.  It’ll pass.”

“Fuck you,” Stiles spits out.  His hands are on his knees and he’s gasping for breath.  “Seriously, fuck you sideways.”  He looks at his left arm, decorated with icy blue slashes.  Wounds, he supposes, but not exactly. They’re surprisingly similar to werewolf claw marks, but they don’t bleed and when he touches them his entire body feels _cold_. 

“Right,” Derek says, and perches momentarily on a log.  It’s covered in snow, intricate patterns across the wood.  Stiles watches as he trails a finger over it.  “At least we’re going the right way.”

“We were just attacked by miniature _frost demons_ ,” Stiles hisses.  “I’d think that was obvious.”  He pauses and pokes his arm again.  “Look, all I wanted was Christmas Eve, and even though my dad has to work, he’ll be back by twelve, and we’re doing the one present at midnight thing, so can we just do this whole _Supernatural_ -inspired shtick on the 27th after the holiday festivities are over?”

“This isn’t inspired by that TV show,” Derek says, slumping down a little more.  “We’re doing this because—it’s pretty obvious, Stiles, do you want more citizens to get covered in snow until they’re smothered by it?  And stop poking at your arm. You’ll make it worse.”

“No,” Stiles says, “but I’m not Dean Winchester, either.  We are not the supernatural police.”

“No,” Derek says, “you’re clearly Sam.” He gets up off the log and offers Stiles a hand.  “Come on, the trail’s going cold.”

“This is _weird_ ,” Stiles says.  “You’re weird.  My life is weird, and I’m pretty sure that it’s all your fault.  Also that is a terrible pun.”

“It wasn’t a pun, and we can have that discussion later,” Derek tells him, and takes off running.  He’s stupidly fluid, wearing just a thermal shirt and jeans, having left his jacket back in the Jeep.  Stiles huffs, breath forming clouds in the air.  He’d had to get his winter coat from the basement, and it smells musty and gross.  Derek had seen it and made a moue of annoyance, breathing in. 

“I hate you,” Stiles mutters—Derek will hear, and probably be annoyed at him later, but whatever—and follows, doing his best to keep up.

 

-

 

Yeah, so, Jack Frost is a real thing, and is kind of evil.  Well, not kind of.  More like unapologetically evil, Gerard Argent-style, and very much enjoys killing people creatively with snow.  Usually sticks to the Northeast, where snow-related accidents tend to be more explainable and don’t tend to start demon hunts, at least not since the Salem Witch Trials were dismissed, but he occasionally goes west.  And this particular Jack Frost has come to California, apparently, as far west as one can go.

“Vampires are real,” Stiles says, blinking at Derek.  Derek is sitting in his desk chair, idly spinning; he’d been there since well before Stiles got home from Scott’s house and an oven full of freshly made sugar cookies.  Melissa McCall is his favorite person ever.  “Please just tell me that already.  If there are frost demons and personified children’s book characters, there are vampires.”

“Vampires aren’t real,” Derek sighs.  “You’ve read that entire bestiary.  Don’t be an idiot.  Frost demons, however, are, and they—it, whatever—is a problem.  Our problem.”

“It’s annoying how you say that every time something new and horrible comes to town.  I thought we had that extremely awkward strategy dinner with Chris Argent for a reason.”

“We did,” Derek responds.  “He won’t try to kill us, or Scott, even when he catches Scott sneaking out of Allison’s window.  That seems productive to me.”

“He spent half the dinner sharpening knives in front of you,” Stiles points out.

“Scott has assured me that’s just what he does.”  Derek seems supremely unconcerned about it.  “Stiles.  Focus on the things that are _actually_ trying to kill us.”  There are irritated lines around his forehead, the kind that Stiles took perverse pleasure in causing a few months ago.  But yeah, things trying to kill them ( _again_ ) or the allegedly innocent townsfolk of Beacon Hills, that’s a pretty pressing issue, even if said things are weird as fuck.

It’s been unseasonably cold for several days now, brisk and bitter in the air, and now that Stiles thinks about it, there’s a suspicious amount of ice coating the roads, even when the sun is out at high noon.  His dad had fitted snow tires on the Jeep that past weekend, grunting ‘better safe than sorry’ at him and reminding him to get his oil checked.  They get snow, sometimes, maybe an inch or two at most.  But ice storms?  Not so much. 

“Jack Frost nipping at your nose and toes—that’s supposed to be a _nice_ thing,” Stiles groans.  “Signs of a white Christmas, you know, with the caroling and the old-timey singers that play on the radio.  Not like, _losing_ those body parts, or I guess  even cold, shivery death.”

Derek says nothing, just looks at him.  He’s had snow tires on his Camaro for two weeks now, once Stiles thinks about it.  He hadn’t noticed, but this is clearly a threat Derek’s thought about, though to be fair, it’s not like Derek has much more to do once he’s finished his workout routine.

“I mean, we beat the alpha pack, more or less, I think that we should get a break for the holidays.  Bonus points for my dad still not knowing about all the dangerous shit you keep getting me into—don’t give me that look, I had to convince him I was kidnapped by rival lacrosse players, which isn’t even halfway believable—and I have to take the SATs soon.  I want Christmas.  I _deserve_ Christmas, Derek.  I ate Christmas cookies today, which is supposed to be a tiding of all things good.”

“Help me kill Jack Frost and you’ll get it,” Derek offers. 

“That is the shittiest of shitty deals,” Stiles tells him. 

Derek shrugs. 

“Now that I think of it,” Stiles says, “there was a movie where a serial killer turns into a murderous snowman called Jack Frost.  Think it’s the same guy?”

“No,” Derek says.  “Anthropomorphic snowmen are beyond even my suspension of belief, and we don’t need to have another conversation about how Hollywood gets things wrong again.”

“It’s one of me and Scott’s holiday horror movies,” Stiles says.  “Don’t dump on tradition.”

Derek stands up.  “Get your coat,” he says.  “Let’s go.”

It turns out that they're actually first going to Derek's apartment, because Derek wants to get a warmer shirt.  Stiles bitches at him for a minute or two about actually dressing for the weather, or the demon-inflicted weather, and Derek steadfastly ignores him.    

"We're taking my car," Stiles tells him immediately.  "And please tell me that you parked a couple of blocks away."

"I ran over here," Derek says.  He shrugs, opening the back door to the house.  Cold air hits them both, frigid and bracing.  "It wasn't a big deal."

"You take recommended cardio exercise way too seriously."  Stiles looks over at him, raising an eyebrow.  "You were that kid who enjoyed having to take the Presidential Fitness Test in gym, weren't you."

"No," Derek says shortly.  "Come on."  He climbs up into the Jeep, tossing a bunch of papers into the backseat, including Stiles's Econ textbook.

"You may not realize this from overheard complaining courtesy of me and Scott—don’t look at me like that, I know you eavesdrop when you’re lurking around the high school," Stiles says, "but I actually quite enjoy economics.  Finstock never gives detention to people on the lacrosse team, and his explanation of market forms and oligopoly tends to be delightfully unhinged."

"Your car is a mess," Derek says instead.  "Do you know where my apartment is?"

"After three nights spending hiding out there from murderous alpha werewolves?"  Stiles turns on the ignition.  "As delightful as it was realizing that you're quite a good cook—seriously, those zucchini fritters were awesome, you could get anyone to join your pack by judicious application of fritters—the mind-boggling terror pretty much ensnared that route into my mind." 

"Thanks," Derek says after a moment.  "Come on, start driving."

Stiles makes a left.  "Like, I didn't know that werewolves could cook.  I thought that you survived off of bunny rabbits and any edible plants growing down by the river.  And the occasional bleedingly rare steak, of course, for those nights when you want to be gourmet."

"My favorite TV show when I was little was old reruns of The French Chef," Derek says eventually.  Stiles sneaks a glance at him.  It's become increasingly common to be like this, Derek in the passenger seat of his jeep, but normally they're sitting in silence, or snarking at each other, or, well, one of them is bleeding horribly all over the upholstery.  Stiles has gotten way too good at dealing with that kind of thing.

Derek looks surpisingly relaxed right now, even though they're off to fight something Stile only heard about when they went to go visit his dad's sister in Vermont ten years ago for the most uncomfortable Thanksgiving ever, considering how his aunt had felt about his mother, though the sledding had been fun.

"Julia Child, huh," he says, and makes another left.  "Most kids watched Nickelodeon.  Me and Scott were always really into Spongebob."

"Most kids never wanted to know how to clarify butter," Derek says.  He pauses, and Stiles just full-out looks at him now.  Derek tends to try to hide his emotions, but that doesn't mean that he's very good at it. 

Stiles has spent an inordinate amount of time with him over the last few months, and he knows what terror looks like on Derek's face, but what's more, he knows what it looks like when Derek's trying to hide how scared he is from everyone else.  Right now Derek just looks unsure, tentative.  Less tense, Stiles thinks, and that makes him actually look his age.

Though he still needs to shave.

He watches some internal debate play out over Derek's features until he's making the turn on Main, kind of ignoring a stop sign because there's no one for several blocks in either direction; everyone is probably inside taking advantage of barely-used fireplaces.  Which is what his dad was thinking of doing tomorrow night, making a fire, and Stiles had agreed because it has sounded nice and not at all like anything brought on by evil spirits.  There were going to be marshmallows and excessive amounts of hot cocoa and leftovers; knowing about the supernatural ruins everything fun.

Derek takes a breath.  "I went to culinary school," he says eventually.  "I didn't spend my time in New York stomping angrily around the West Village and cultivating my collection of leather jackets."

"Culinary school?"  Stiles asks.  "Like the CIA?"  He’d wanted to go there when he was thirteen, if only because the thought of saying ‘I go to the CIA’ was immensely appealing.

Derek shakes his head.  "That was too far away," he says.  "Laura didn't want to move to Poughkeepsie, either.  She was going for her masters at Columbia, at the teachers’ college.  We didn't—I don’t know what all of you think I used to do.  We weren't refugees."

"Yeah," Stiles says, and turns into Derek's parking lot.  "I'm starting to get that."

"It was food studies at NYU," Derek says.  "I had one semester left before graduation, and then I had to come here."

They look at each other for a long moment.  Stiles doesn't want to say anything, doesn't want to ruin it somehow; he knows that saying the wrong thing would stop this conversation in its tracks.  Derek had talked some when they were holed up together in hiding, but that had been different, that had been information Stiles might need if he was the one to survive and Derek wasn't.  That had had a whole edge of nail-biting, blood-curdling terror that this, casual facts about someone's life, thankfully lacks.

"I really liked the fritters," Stiles says.  "They were awesome."

"I make pretty good eggnog," Derek offers.  The ignition's off, they've arrived, but he isn't making any moves to get out of the car.  "It could be a Christmas thing, maybe.  You could take some home to your dad."

"With rum in it?"

Derek rolls his eyes.  "Yes, Jesus, with rum in it if that's what you want."  He mutters something that sounds like _teenagers_.

"Suddenly I feel much better about giving up precious hours of my winter vacation to tromp around chasing a fable," Stiles says. 

Derek leans over him and presses the unlock button, his arm brushing up against Stiles's chest.  Stiles is cold—and now he knows why he's been so cold for ten days, which is nice, it isn’t merely his inability to tolerate any kind of weather—but Derek, in spite of everything, is just warm, emanating heat.  It feels like a brand in the best way possible. 

"Let's make this quick," Derek says, and hops out of the car.  Stiles follows him up the steps to his apartment, which is small and sparse and overall kind of shitty—though better than the burnt house where his entire family died—and decorated in what looks like the results of one overwhelming trip to IKEA.  Derek keeps his books in milk crates, for god's sake, and his clothes in this ridiculous mirrored armoire thing he must have bought in a moment of weakness, because Stiles was not aware that black t-shirts and a collection of bloodstained muscle shirts took up that much room, especially when they kept getting ripped to shreds during fun nature excursion and supernatural turf wars.  Even his own closet was taking a beating, but thankfully his dad just thought that he was filling out a little, which was at least halfway true-- all that running for his life was really building up his endurance.

"Wait here," Derek says, and disappears into his bedroom.  Stiles glances around the kitchen, notes, for the first time, the teetering stack of well-used cookbooks.  There's an edition of everything Julia Child has ever put out, as well as several things that must be textbooks, and a couple of glossy new books he thinks must be produced by fancy Manhattan restaurants: the Union Square Cafe Cookbook is on top, dusted with flour.

There's a platter of Christmas cookies on the rickety table, smelling of sugar and cinnamon.  Stiles remembers complaining about the table last time he was here, until Derek had growled in a way that was kind of hard to take seriously, but then he’d gone ahead and stuffed a book under the shortest leg.  When he looks down, it’s still there, an old copy of _Catcher in the Rye_ stolen from the high school library at least ten years ago.

"What," Derek says, emerging from the depths of his bedroom.  He's wearing more than a t-shirt now, Stiles notices, which is good because looking at Derek was starting to make him cold.  He’s also carrying a knife, which Stiles raises his eyebrows at, and multiple lengths of iron chain.  Derek sighs and tucks the knife into a sheath, then puts it in his back pocket, which probably isn’t the greatest place for it.  He might need to get Allison to tell Derek how not to stab oneself in the ass with your weapon.  The chains stay in Derek’s hands.

"I'm just rapidly losing faith in my observational skills," Stiles tells him.  "Also, I hope you have somewhere to put that chain, because I don’t want to get freaky looks from your neighbors again.  Can I have a cookie?"

"No," Derek says, reaching for the light switch.  "Let's go."

Stiles walks down the stairs and stumbles to a halt once he gets outside.  "Fuck," he says, stopping short; behind him, Derek tries to come to a stop and fails, pinwheeling into Stiles in a move that must be pretty funny to anyone peering down at the commotion from their windows.  They fall, inelegantly, into a bush.

"Ouch," Derek says after a moment.  He's on top of Stiles-- of course he is, because that's how the universe is working today-- and warm.  The kind of thing that Stiles wouldn’t necessarily mind except that Derek is also a heavy, dead weight pressing Stiles's stomach into the damp ground.

"Get off, lardass, this isn't going to be like the time I held you up in the pool."  Stiles elbows at Derek, however ineffectually.  "Seriously, there are thorns in unfortunate places, and unlike you, I can't yank them out and immediately forget that it even hurt."

Derek rolls off him with a sigh.  "I don't forget that it hurt," he says tiredly.  "Stiles."

Stiles turns his head and looks over at Derek, who's now fully on his feet.  Stupid werewolf agility, or whatever you want to call it, it's unfair on and off the lacrosse field.  "What."

"I'm trying to help you up here," Derek says, and yeah, now that Stiles looks over, Derek has a hand outstretched.

"Oh," Stiles says, mouth parted.  "Right."  He shifts around and reaches, taking Derek's hand, and with a yank, Derek pulls him up without even a huff of breath.  Stupid werewolf super-strength too, shouldn't forget about that.

"Come on," Derek says.  Stiles sends him a look.

"Look at your car," he says.  Derek's car, tucked away in a corner of the parking lot, is inevitably the nicest one in the lot, given the overall condition of the place he’s staying.  It's also entirely covered in ice.  "I guess that they thought you'd be the one driving."

"Shit," Derek says.  "Goddamnit."  There's ice caked two inches thick on the windshield, coating the handles, and Stiles steps closer to get a better look.  It isn't just frozen in clumps, like the aftermath of any old snowstorm.  It's done in intricate snowflake swirls, etched patterns dancing across the entire body of the car.  It's the best fuck you he's ever seen in his entire life, and he’s known Jackson Whittemore since kindergarten.

"Dude, I'm pretty sure they know who you are," Stiles says.  He reaches a finger out to try to brush the frost away.  It won't budge, but instead sends a spike of cold right into his veins, right to his heart.  "Yikes, that really hurt."

"This is a warning," Derek says, stomping over to the Camaro.  "Jack Frost knows I'm the alpha."

"The whole world knows you're the alpha, you announce it at every turn."  Stiles rolls his eyes.  "Clearly he's worried more about your whole 'I'm gonna get you off my territory by tearing you to bits' shtick than the level of wolf you've ascended to."

"He knows we're coming after him," Derek says.  "He's not-- a mischief spirit doesn't just do this kind of thing, you understand me?  They don't try to kill.  They aren't malevolent, right, they’re in it for the chaos."

"I get the difference," Stiles says.  "We can still take my car.  My car’s fine."

“We’re going to find him and kill him,” Derek growls, stomping over to Stiles’s Jeep.  It’s thankfully untouched, but then again, Stiles hasn’t been going around talking up his intent to slaughter a childhood fable either.

“See, it’s a circle of violence between you and the snow demon.  And I’m still going to be the one driving,” Stiles says, fixing Derek with a wary look.  “Get in.”

Derek does, albeit with the least amount of grace and maximum amount of glowering possible.  With a glance over at him, Stiles turns on the radio, to rap music he’d been listening to in an attempt to wake himself up before a test right before break started.  Derek doesn’t say anything, and Stiles _knows_ Derek’s opinion on most rappers thanks to his experiences carpooling werewolves around town.

“So,” Stiles says, over the dulcet strains of Kanye, “how do we kill this thing?”

“Bind it in the iron chain to sap its energy, stab it with an iron knife.”  Derek shrugs.  “Not too difficult.”

“That’s not what your car would say,” Stiles snarks, and gets a jab in the ribs and a glare for his pains.  “Ow, jeez, driving here.  What do we do if we get a massive amount of snow dumped on us?”

“We try to avoid it,” Derek says.  “Or—Deaton’s been teaching you.”

Stiles nods cautiously.

“So you can deal with it,” Derek says.  He rolls down the window, sticks a hand outside.  “Turn here.”

“You are so lucky this is four-wheel drive,” Stiles says.  “Otherwise driving down the forest paths would kill my suspension.  You only tolerate me so you can be careful with your Camaro, I knew it.”

“Shut up,” Derek says, but Stiles notices that he doesn’t exactly deny it.  The forest is getting, well, _unreal_ as they go forwards, ice coating the leaves and branches of each tree.  There’s snow falling as well, the further they get.  It hadn’t been like that in town, but maybe Jack Frost doesn’t have the biggest radius.  It looks like Narnia; the only thing needed to complete the scene is a lamppost and a faun.

“We’re getting close,” Derek tells him.  “This is the environment it’s comfortable in.  I’m really surprised that he’s made his way out west—it’s entirely the wrong climate.  And there’s a lot less belief.”

Stiles blinks.

“Ever been in New England in winter?”  Derek gestures.  “It looks a lot like this.”

Stiles takes a breath.  “Maybe it’s lonely,” he says.

“Maybe,” Derek allows, “but it’s still killing people, and that isn’t acceptable to me and Chris Argent alike.”  He pauses.  “Stop the car.”

“Do you see it?”  Stiles looks forward through the windshield, though he isn’t quite sure what he’s searching for, trying to see what Derek sees.  There’s white trees and branches and mist, and he can make out the shape of a ranger station in the far distance—he’s pretty sure he was there on a fourth-grade field trip to learn about birds, so they’re not too far into the woods—but no frost demons in his line of sight.

“No.”  Derek is unbuckling his seatbelt.  “But much further in the car and it’ll notice.  I would.”

“Yet again,” Stiles says, and turns off the ignition, “not all of us have a supernatural sense of smell.   In fact, I don’t even think I would _want_ it.  I don’t know how Scott doesn’t go insane in the locker rooms, my lacrosse equipment is bad enough to me and my puny nose.”

“Get out of the car,” Derek says.  “Don’t forget your coat.”

“Wait.”  Stiles looks at him.  “I don’t want my car to be iced.”

“That’s why I bought two lengths of chain.” Derek seems pretty close to rolling his eyes.  “It shouldn’t be able to cross the line.  Similar to mountain ash.”

“Is this accompanied by a whole ‘close your eyes and believe, Stiles, believe’ thing _like_ the first time with the mountain ash, and also the recent and terrifying second and third?”  Stiles looks spectacularly unimpressed, even while shoving on a hat, coat, and fuzzy striped gloves.  “Because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to believe in regards to a lot of metal.  It would be harder, I think, though I can’t tell you how.”

“No,” Derek tells him.  “It just has to be an unbroken circle.”

“Right,” Stiles responds.  “I think I’m going to nail an upside-down horseshoe over my door after this whole escapade.  I’ll tell my dad all the cool kids are doing it.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Derek says, and hops out of the car.  He lays the chain down quickly while Stiles watches, winding a scarf around his neck.  Derek makes sure to cross one end of the chain over the other and steps back, satisfied.  Stiles kind of expects to feel a buzz of energy, something palpable, but the iron simply sits there, cold against even the snow.  Metal is weird.

It’s still snowing.  Derek thinks of the snow in New York, of the blizzard they’d gotten one year.  Classes for him and Laura both had been canceled and they’d stayed inside and made hot chocolate, watched Christmas specials on the TV.  He’d cooked something—he thinks that it was grilled cheese and tomato soup, using up whatever had been left in the fridge—and it had been peaceful, at least, even if it hadn’t been precisely _good_.

“Come on,” Stiles says.  He looks itchy, like he’d rather not be outside, and that’s been clear since Derek got him an hour ago.  “Sniff him out, do whatever you’re going to do, so you can stab Jack Frost in the face and I can go home.”

“That way,” Derek says, and points.  “Come on.”  He jerks his head, and starts walking; Stiles has to hurry to keep up.

Twenty minutes later, Stiles is trudging alongside him through the increasing buildup of snow.  It’s ankle deep, slippery, and Derek is grateful for the extra balance he has, because Stiles looks like he’s focusing most of his attention on not falling.   “It isn’t just me, right?”  Stiles glances over at Derek, face partially obscured by his scarf.  “It’s getting harder to see.  And walk.”

And that’s when three miniature frost demons jump at them out of the mist. 

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Stiles groans.  They’re small and skeletal, with black eyes and a wicked gash for a mouth.  They’ve got claws too, but at least they can’t fly.  Stiles says as much to Derek, who’s pulled the knife of his pants.

“Useful,” Stiles mutters, because doesn’t have anything to defend himself with, not really, though to be fair it’s not like they knew Jack Frost had minions.  He grabs a branch and swings it blindly.  The snow demons seem to be fogging the air past what was already there, so he can barely see two or three feet in front of him.

There’s a shrill screen and a triumphant noise from Derek’s direction.  “Got one,” Derek says.  He pauses, and Stiles hears the crunch of snow underfoot.  “Maybe two,” Derek amends, and that’s when the remaining demon takes the opportunity to rake its claws across Stiles’s arm.

“Shit,” he says, and wheels around, hitting it with the branch hard enough to fling it into a tree, where it shatters, sending shards of what looks like ice through the air.  “Shit, Derek, ow—come on, _run_.”

 

-

 

They walk for about twenty minutes before the snow is coming down so hard it’s almost impossible to walk. 

“This is not what I signed up for,” Stiles tells Derek, or tells the large, overbearing snowy lump that used to be Derek.  “I stand by what I said about Christmas Eve.  This can totally wait until later.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, shaking snow out of his hair, “this?  This isn’t going to be over until we’ve killed Jack Frost.  Not after we killed his goons.”

“I don’t think you can call those little dudes goons,” Stiles says, “also, seriously, I can’t see and I’m beyond cold.”

They’re coming up on the ranger station up ahead, a shape that’s too boxy to be a tree.  “We have to stop there,” Stiles says, “even if it’s just for a little while.  I don’t even know what time it is, and I need to warm up.”

“You want this to be over before Christmas—“

“—no, _you_ do, or you’d have let me stay at him” Stiles frowns—

“—but fine, if that’s what you need to do.”  Derek brushes some more snow off his body.  “I could do with getting this all off of me anyways.”

“That’s the spirit!”  Stiles grins, huge and fake.  At least his Jeep is safe, way back where there isn’t evil magic snow everywhere.

The ranger station is locked, which isn’t any kind of impediment; Derek breaks the lock in one easy motion. 

“Helpful for when we want to keep people out,” Stiles remarks, but Derek just sends him the kind of look that says _we can barricade the door_.  Even though that’s worked so well for him and Scott in the past.

“Just go inside,” Derek says.  He’s still trying to brush snow off him.  Stiles goes for it, shaking the snow off in a semi-coordinated flail, and tries not to feel a little happy when some of it hits Derek in the face.  Derek raises one impossibly eloquent eyebrow.

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing,” Stiles grumbles, and heads into the shack.

It’s warm.  That’s his first thought, that while it might be dark and a little musty, it’s warm and there isn’t snow falling from the rafters.  There’s metal file cabinets and a desk and a couch, plus a small space heater tucked into the corner.  Derek follows him in, flipping the light switch; even in the low light of the cabin, it’s clear that his clothes soaked through.

“Do you think that still works?”  Stiles gestures at the heater.  “Because if so maybe we can get your stuff to dry.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, “but first—“ and he pushes the desk chair so it’s under the broken lock, adding the file cabinet as an extra barricade.  “That’s a little better,” he says, and goes around the four corners of the room.  The windows don’t seem to open, either, so that’s good, that’s doable.  “We can wait it out for an hour.”

Stiles scrubs his hand across his face and sinks into the couch, pulling out his phone.  Through some miracle, it’s dry and he has service.  “Let me just—I gotta text my dad and tell him not to bother getting up for midnight presents.”

There’s a twist to Derek’s mouth that suggests that he’s sorry, maybe, but he doesn’t say anything.  He pulls off his shirt instead, and his jeans and boots and that goddamned knife are the next to go, until he’s standing in front of the apparently working heater in damp, clinging boxer-briefs and red socks printed with Christmas trees.

“I’m finding it really hard to not say anything about the socks,” Stiles says.  He can’t help but look at Derek: the room is small and he’s in the freaking middle of it, standing with shoulders thrown back and why shouldn’t he, when he looks like that?  Stiles licks his lips unconsciously; his mouth is dry.

There’s another twist to Derek’s mouth, but this suggests amusement instead.  He sits on the couch next to Stiles, stretching his arms out.  He’s warm, Stiles can feel it, a little bit warmer than the average human being.  It’s nice.

“We need a plan,” Stiles says eventually.  “I mean—he knows we’re here, so maybe he’ll come to us.”

“That would be nice,” Derek says.  “Easy.”

“Because things always are,” Stiles mutters, and thinks of the alphas and everything that had gone down with them.  That gets him a sharp bark of laughter and a smile from Derek, however slight; for once they’re on the same wavelength of shared near-death experiences.  Stiles shifts on the sofa. 

Then again last time he and Derek were like this they were hiding, tense and on alert, and it was so much more— well.  This is something they can handle.

“Hey,” Derek says, “let me take a look at your arm.”

Stiles pulls his arm against his chest.  “It’s fine, it’s just cold.  It isn’t anything I can deal with.”

“It isn’t an ordinary wound,” Derek says.

“No shit, Sherlock.”  Stiles rolls his eyes.  “I thought all cuts turned to ice.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”  Derek grabs his arm, fingers brushing over the slashes.  It doesn’t send a spike of cold through his veins, not like before.  “I can’t do anything about it,” Derek continues, “not if it doesn’t hurt, I can only take away the pain.”

“Seriously, I swear it only feels cold or I’d be complaining a hell of a lot more,” Stiles says, but Derek doesn’t let go of his arm.

When he’d been hiding at Derek’s he’d seen him naked once, accidentally, the first night he’d been there.  Derek, accustomed to being alone, had walked from the bathroom to the bedroom without a towel, and hey, Stiles had appreciated the view.  It’s not like he’s the first one to objectify Derek Hale, not in the least.  Derek spends half his life angrily doing sit-ups, there should be someone around to see the result.

This feels way more intimate than that ever did.

“You can let go,” Stiles says, and Derek murmurs assent, but he—doesn’t, actually, and that, that is just unfair, the same way the dim light in the cabin gilding his chest is unfair, and the fact that he’s almost naked, that is unfair too.  Stiles doesn’t say any of this out loud, but it’s a close thing.

Derek’s thumb traces up one of the spidery veins visible through the thin skin of his wrist, and Stiles yanks away his hand like he’s been burned.

“Sorry,” Derek says, cautious, and Stiles tries to move over on the couch, tries to make room, but he can’t.  Their thighs are pressed together, and he’s still in his wet clothes, and this whole scenario is—he should be at home, with his dad, Christmas tree lights bright and opening a present.  He’s getting a new external hard drive, if the results of his snooping are correct.  It’s going to be exciting.

“You said that out loud,” Derek says, and Stiles realizes that yeah, he’s been muttering to himself.  It’s his turn to be sorry, but Derek catches his arm again.

“Why do you keep doing that,” Stiles says flatly, “you don’t need to keep doing that.  You don’t _need_ to be touching me.”

Derek’s skin and eyes are almost gold in the light, and Stiles is just pale and fragile and part of him is blue thanks to yet another one of Derek’s ridiculous quests, and this is just _unfair_.

“You keep using the word,” Derek says lowly.  He yanks, not very gently, on Stiles’s arm until they’re impossibly  closer, eye-to-eye.  “Everything is unfair to you.  You—“

“I what,” Stiles says.  He sounds breathless, he hates it, and he licks his lips again.  Derek’s eyes track that motion, hungry in a way they weren’t before; it’s such a disconnect between this Derek and the one he pictures taking culinary classes and chopping onions perfectly, making soufflés in a classroom, or whatever it is they did instead of learning calculus and American history, the gap between the Derek who bought all those cookbooks, or was given them as gifts, and the one whose grip is cutting into Stiles’s arm.

“You’re the one I wanted to come with me tonight, Stiles—there’s a _reason_ for that, you idiot.”

“Hey,” Stiles protests, halfhearted, and he can’t get much more out because Derek is kissing him.

Technically kissing him, but not really.  It’s a kiss to the corner of his mouth, light and gentle, and if Stiles has been asked to talk about how Derek kissed, he would have said overwhelmingly, or devouring, taking control and taking it to an extreme.  This is not that, this is almost _sweet_ , and there’s something almost wrong about that.

“You’re dry,” Stiles says, Derek breathing against his skin.  “I mean, your body is.”

“Yeah,” Derek says.  “I—“

“It’s not like I expected this, you have to give me a minute.”  Stiles blinks, shakes his head.  He pulls away a little, but that’s stupid, why is he doing that. “Wait, no, that’s—you should kiss me again.  That’s what you should do, it’s Christmas Eve and I want you to kiss me again.”

The window closest to the door shatters, and that’s great, because what does Stiles have here?  A mostly-naked werewolf, a length of chain, and a frost demon who has apparently has the ability to throw rocks.

And just when things might have been going somewhere for him.  It fucking _figures_.

 


End file.
